Brainstormin’ Soup

One of the things I look forward to about cold weather is a night hot bowl of soup. Unfortunately, last year I wore out my old veggie soup standby and by the time spring rolled around I was SO ready to drop the veggie soup for greener pastures.

However, there are so many positives about soup. It’s a wonderful way to get your veggies in. It’s generally a cheap meal, and it’s often fairly easy to prepare. And you cannot beat the leftover factor – I love having dinner done for the next night or two, especially when I know BHE has a meeting or something else rushes us in the evening and we need dinner, pronto.

In fact, tonight was one of those nights – BHE had a meeting, and the boys and I had plans to see a magic show. But since I don’t want to tire out so quickly of vegetable soup, I’ve been playing around this winter, and came up with this – hope you like the results:

*NOTE: This could easily all be thrown together in a crockpot, but I had to soak my beans during the day and therefore did not use this method. If you crockpot, just soak your beans first, sautee your onion and bell pepper, dump it all together and let ‘er rip on low).

Soak beans according the package directions; cook for about 1.5-2 hours.
When your beans hit around that 1.5-2 hours mark, sautee your onion and bell pepper until tender. I seasoned it with salt and black pepper at this time, and added in the red pepper flakes at this point. When it’s starting to get tender, toss in the ham to heat up.

While this is cooking, add the tomatoes, broth, frozen spinach, garlic and seasonings to the beans. Once the onions are tender, throw the onion, bell pepper and ham into the pot. Let simmer to get the spinach cook and let the flavors blend.

Feel free to sprinkle with a little parmesan before you eat it.

The boys don’t really eat stuff like this, but BHE and I were really pleased with dinner tonight, and we will probably be eating this for at least one more meal (probably two). Let me know if you try it, and I hope you enjoy it!

ETA: I FORGOT THYME! I probably used a teaspoon or two of it. Added above.

Good looking soup and I’m glad I was able to find the original author. This scummy splog stole my content too. I’ve sent a cease and desist and maybe if we both do, it will help bring down this one waste of a site.